Well-capitalized banks are supposed to have double-digit capital levels while making low risk investments.

Deutsche Bank, on the other hand, has a capital level of less that 3% (just like Lehman), and an incredibly risky asset base that boasts notional derivatives exposure of more than $70 trillion, roughly the size of world GDP.

Even the IMF has stated unequivocally that Deutsche Bank poses the greatest risk to global financial stability.

And the IMF would be right… except for all the other banks.

Because, meanwhile in Italy, nearly the entire Italian banking system is rapidly sliding into insolvency.

Italian banks are sitting on over 360 billion euros in bad loans right now and are in desperate need of a massive bailout.

IMF calculations show that Italian banks’ capital levels are among the lowest in the world, just ahead of Bangladesh.

min 17 - behind-the-scenes fight in the European Parliament over the appointment of top managers for the so-called Juncker Plan: a €315 billion EU investment plan. // threat of White Elephants, roads and bridges to nowhere ... only politicians can put themselves in front of photojournalists for photo op. no productive investments into the future. renewable, smart grid, private public paternerships, carbon emission reduction projects ie urbanisation planning projects to half city traffic and put cycling network in place, and zero emission public transportation, ... --- no accountability, no oversight no transparency. risk of corruption, bribery, dirty handshakes, ...

But, as I mentioned, the disclosure that we were a bit richer in the last parliament than we thought is not all fabulous news for the chancellor. He and his Treasury colleagues should probably be anxious that the faster growth did not translate into higher tax revenues. In case you need reminding, George Osborne singularly failed to hit the deficit reduction targets he set himself. But the explanation can no longer be that the economy flatlined, because that's not what happened. So if the higher-than-thought growth in the last parliament left the gap between government revenues and expenditures tens of billions of pounds greater than George Osborne hoped, it also suggests that his aspiration of eliminating the deficit in this parliament may prove equally elusive. //&! Despite strong employment growth, wage growth remained historically weak - the usual link between falling unemployment and rising wages seemed to have been broken. - bbc.in/1OEffcS

Joris Luyendijk spent two years talking to hundreds of City insiders. They revealed how close we came to disaster – and how quickly finance went back to business as usual [...] [Like in cycling, doping ... omerta ... blood brother ] The City is governed by a code of silence and fear of publicity; those caught talking to the press without a PR officer present could be sacked or sued. But once I had persuaded City insiders to talk (always and only on condition of anonymity), they were remarkably forthcoming.

Nearly 100,000 children in England are living in temporary accommodation after being made homeless, new figures show. // &! More & more student start work after graduation in low pay jobs not requiring a diploma, due to current job market/job creation situation in UK! Not hitting 21k repayment threshold - bbc.in/1OU0K3H - OBR show fewer are likely to start paying than was expected when the policy was introduced, [...] freezing the loan repayment threshold - alongside other changes such as replacing maintenance grants for poorer students with loans - will significantly increase the cost of going to university. It says this risks undermining pledges by successive governments to improve social mobility, as well as raising uncertainty in students' minds over the terms of their borrowing. //&! Higher education cuts 'risk NI being left behind' - bbc.in/1gZMrgj //&! Doctors warn Tories not to cut free school meals (child poverty, food poverty) bbc.in/1LewQrn

The growing buy-to-let property market in the UK could post a threat to wider financial stability, a Bank of England committee has said. [...] Buy-to-let mortgage lending had the potential to "amplify" a housing boom and bust, the Bank's Financial Stability Committee (FPC) concluded. Lending in this sector has risen by 40% since 2008, the FPC said. It stopped short of suggesting any intervention by government or regulators at this stage. "The FPC is alert to the rapid growth of the market and potential developments in underwriting standards," the committee said.

Number of flatsharers aged 45-54 has risen by 300% in five years, figures show, amid soaring house prices, especially in London [...] Photographer Alex Forsey, 44, is typical of the new generation of flatsharers in their 40s. He recently moved into a house in Clapton, east London, with three other people in their 20s to 40s. He said: “The most affordable one-bed flat I was shown was £1,200 a month, and it was worse than a squat. The agent tried telling me it was a bargain.” //&! ability to get interest only loan is unbelievable.

Mortgage brokers said that the relatively low mortgage rates on offer could be a response to a mismatch of supply and demand. "The mortgage market remains over supplied with lenders having more money to lend than there are people looking for home loans. This means criteria will have to loosen and rates will have to remain low to ensure lenders hit their volume targets," said Mark Harris, chief executive of SPF Private Clients. "For many, the main issue is not so much finding a cheap mortgage rate but being able to prove affordability to satisfy the lender and meet [the regulator's] tighter criteria."

- zero hedge had chart w student loan bubble standing at 1trn, and some, as of about mid 2015, with car loans about to reach 1trn, and credit card debt. just google 'zero hedge car loan' - Blackstone says car loans are now in "untested" territory - bit.ly/1TO6Gxb - "The takeaway here is simple: under pressure to keep the US auto sales miracle alive and feed Wall Street's securitization machine (which is itself driven by demand from yield-starved investors) along the way, lenders are lowering their underwriting standards and extending loans to underqualified borrowers. [...] This cannot and will not end well." // July - With the US consumer hunkering down in 2015 and barely spending more than in the comparble period last year, the only silver lining had been auto sales driven almost entirely by access to cheap credit; - bit.ly/1QBIWc5

Softening employment figures and weakening surveys on manufacturing and construction output suggested growth in the UK could slow in the second half of the year and inflation might not pick up as expected. Furthermore, problems in emerging markets could be a drag on UK growth and the headwinds from those economies were unlikely to abate any time soon, Mr Haldane added. //&! In a wide-ranging speech that called on central bankers to think more radically to fend off the next downturn – including the notion of abolishing cash – Haldane warned the UK was not ready for higher borrowing costs. He described recent events in Greece and China as "the latest leg of what might be called a three-part crisis trilogy."

… much of the rise in share prices and fall in currency values under QE were nothing more than liquidity-driven phenomena divorced from real economy fundamentals. Now that an end to QE is in sight, it is time for a correction. Fed Chair Janet Yellen’s remarks several months ago about elevated stock market valuations were most likely a reference to this bubble. A correction of some kind was inevitable as the Fed moved to normalize monetary policy. However, it still needed a trigger, and that was provided by China. [...] “The market gyrations of the last two months represent just the beginning of the QE trap”, says Koo.

[ game of chicken ] [ can private sector carry forward the little bit of recovery/growth the western world got in a rising interest rate world, that will eat away spending bc of higher repayment rates amid little to no wage growth !!! ] [W]arned developing countries to brace themselves for possible financial turbulence when the US Federal Reserve starts to raise interest rates. It could come as early as Thursday when the Fed concludes a policy meeting. A new report from the World Bank says there will probably be a modest impact on developing countries. But it also warns there is some risk that it could be worse. The Bank says it is possible that there would be sufficient disruption to capital flows into developing countries to harm economic growth and financial stability. //&! bit.ly/1QhP6Of //&! youtu.be/G8lCqhCbrA4 //&! youtu.be/KH1UlvgXqTE = bond sell-off move in anticipation of Taper. //&! strength of dollar added already 25bps - youtu.be/zWrxFszwrsQ &! youtu.be/lpTkQqEQmE4

[6 Killer Apps - youtu.be/xpnFeyMGUs8 ] Degeneration and Regeneration after the GFC // interlude: Margaret Thatcher, the power of ideas in public office, in politics: Nature of freedom, economic freedom & other freedoms. Hayek & Adam Smith // The Great Degeneration (new Book 2013). Theme: The role of institutions in the creation and preservation of freedom. // GFC = "The slight depression." Avoided Great Depression like scenario by policy response (reflation) different to previous history. Talks abt equity market levels back 2 pre-2007 levels. EQUITY/(financial) ASSET PRICES. Bank Bailout! But NOT reached (real economy) escape velocity! Proper recovery! Under Keynes it should be an admission of defeat (bc lack of fiscal stimulus)! Is a sub-plot in the story of western decline! Great reconvergence of west & the rest of the world. // &! youtu.be/VVsP2X4kuA8 &! importance of civil institutions - youtu.be/8RB7Ah95RM4 bit.ly/1NqF7am &! youtu.be/kXTjj9NQKYo &! youtu.be/tyYTChxYAQ4

The privatization couldn't have come at a more opportune moment. Even Nobel laureate Paul Krugman, an early Abenomics cheerleader, said this week that he's "really, really worried" about Tokyo’s chances of ending a two-decade slump. The hope is that the listing, which will be targeted at individual Japanese, will encourage households to invest more of their savings. Perhaps more important, it could enliven the country's stagnant banking sector. Japan is among the developed world's most overbanked nations, with more than 100 sleepy regional players (84 of which are publicly traded) servicing 126 million people. Thanks to the Bank of Japan's zero-interest-rate policies, profit margins are shrinking even faster than the population.

After 15 years of staggering declines, the cost of building a company in San Francisco is rising sharply // prohibitive! diluting too much too early. // China and other BRIC paper millionaers divesting into property speculators, around the world. every city that has seen substantial price appreciation +10-20% over last +5 years // hot money from monetary policy, excess reserves, flushing around the globe //

International banks, however, don't appear to be heavily exposed to China, at first glance anyway. Bank of International Settlements data show that their claims on Chinese banks, companies, consumers and public sector are quite manageable, though Australian and U.K. banks have extended a lot of credit in China in proportion to their total foreign assets: [...] U.K. banks' $198 billion in Chinese assets at the end of last year looks particularly threatening, especially given that HSBC and Standard Chartered both derive a significant portion of their revenue from China. This exposure is particularly problematic because a debt overhang is one of the Chinese economy's biggest problems.

The bottom line is that markets may fear that QT has much more to go." Deutsche was kind enough to provide a silver lining to this otherwise dreary forecast: "What could turn sentiment more positive? The first is other central banks coming in to fill the gap that the PBoC is leaving. China’s QT would need to be replaced by higher QE elsewhere, with the ECB and BoJ being the most notable candidates." [... or the shadowy actor Belgium - bit.ly/1LWtQQ9 &! bit.ly/1Ib2oNo - might have been a smoke mirror of the PBOC using "Euroclear", but the rabbit is out of the hat now! ] //&! bloom.bg/1JBiywV - Welcome to Quantitative Tightening as $12 Trillion Reserves Fall. The great global monetary tightening of 2015 is under way, but it’s not being led by the Federal Reserve.

PBoC’s rapid liquidation of USTs over the past two weeks has added fuel to the fire and effectively boxed the Fed in. On Tuesday, Deutsche Bank is out extending their "quantitative tightening" (QT) analysis with a look at whats ahead now that the so-called "Great Accumulation" is over. "Following two decades of unremitting growth, we expect global central bank reserves to at best stabilize but more likely to continue to decline in coming years," [...] Less reserve accumulation should put secular upward pressure on both global fixed income yields & USD. [If the shadow actor in Belgium doesnt buy it up @rate everyone else is selling (divesting) ] [...] The current secular shift in reserve manager behaviour represents the equivalent to Quantitative Tightening, or QT. This force is likely to be a persistent headwind towards developed market central banks’ exit from unconventional policy in coming years, representing an additional source of uncertainty in the global economy. ...

What might not be as clear (on the surface anyway) is how recent events in developing economy FX markets following the devaluation of the yuan stem from a seismic shift we began discussing late last year - namely, the death of the petrodollar system which has served to underwrite decades of dollar dominance and was, until recently, a fixture of the post-war global economic order. In short, the world seems to have underestimated how structurally important collapsing crude prices are to global finance. For years, producers funnelled their dollar proceeds into USD assets providing a perpetual source of liquidity, boosting the financial strength of the reserve currency, leading to even higher asset prices and even more USD-denominated purchases, and so forth, in a virtuous loop. [...] For the first time in decades, exported petrodollar capital turned negative. [...] the world is now beginning to feel the impact of the petrodollar's quiet demise. // &! Follow-on! bit.ly/1IGh4O3

It turns out investors were right about Alibaba: No company is more on the front lines of China's economic shifts than Jack Ma's juggernaut. And that's just where the problems begin. [...] After months of putting the entire weight of the government behind saving the market, Beijing appears to have given up. The fallout from that realization will have unpredictable effects on 1.3 billion people indoctrinated to believe Beijing can control any crisis or narrative. As markets swoon and gross domestic product slides, consumers are delaying nonessential purchases. [...] Mass austerity has only just begun. [...] it would be interesting to see how the government responds to "large and widespread investment losses that could lead to a notable negative wealth effect which could weaken consumption, as well as grievances against the authorities." [...] Macau's GDP -26.4% last quarter [...] Chinese gamblers stayed home. [...] Ma created a better quarterly GDP report than Beijing.

a guarantee on TBTF (implied bailout) in case of problems = market distortion. implied nationalism. distorts also the cost of capital (credit), because you can loan the institute money to a lower interest (%) depite knowing it is riskier, but you do it anyway for the business sake, and you also know that in case the bank/institute goes belly up that it will be bailed out and that, due to preferences, you can get - at a worst case scenario - most of your money back and not lose it all. // "Aufgrund der neuen Bankenabwicklungsrichtlinie der EU geht Fitch davon aus, dass Banken im Krisenfall nicht mehr damit rechnen können, dass sie mit Geld der Steuerzahler gerettet werden. Den neuen Regeln zufolge sollen vor allem die Anleihegläubiger haften." // This is then a competitive advantage for USA Banks in a competition for Fortune 500 business. Followed by UK.